


Day 3: Darkest Moments, Brightest Lights

by youareaprogram



Series: Reyes Vidal Prompts [2]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: M/M, MReyder - Freeform, My OCs, Reyder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-20 17:47:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11340327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youareaprogram/pseuds/youareaprogram
Summary: Done for the day 3 prompt of the Reyes Vidal week on tumblr. Chose darkest moments. A little thing I wrote where after the quest High Noon Reyes and Ryder (my OC Flynn Ryder) get captured by the remnants of those loyal to Sloane. Warning for some violence/torture stuff.





	Day 3: Darkest Moments, Brightest Lights

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah pretty late to the party with this Reyes Vidal prompt stuff but I write my bad stuff slowly ooops. Also not sure if this actually fulfills the prompt but oh well.  
> (P.S. If anyone wants to know, my Flynn Ryder looks like this: (https://you-are-a-program.tumblr.com/post/162352028604/pathfinder-flynn-ryder)  
> (P.P.S I know that was a shameless way to just get people to look at my character but he's pretty and I'm not sorry)

Red-electric sprayed across the cavern as helmeted-people administered their beatings to the two restrained men. Reyes, face plastered in crimson, winced each time the steel-coated knuckles smashed against his skull. Tissue, contorting to survive, ripped and tore across Reyes’ bloody face; the spit-spatter flying wildly when an incoming blow struck at his half open mouth as he gasped for breath, ripping his jaws apart.

Suddenly the barrage stopped, the figure working on Reyes removed the knuckle duster and began to flex their fingers off to the side. Reyes, beaten and beleaguered, attempted to regain his senses but his head was spinning, the agony raw. He looked at the man next to him, his eyes unfocused, straining.

Flynn’s face was a jigsaw of ugly purples and yellows, his face already swelling up from the beating. Drool hung from his lower lip, entwining with the blood from his mouth before dripping onto the rocky floor.

 

“Flynn?” Reyes croaked at the younger man, throat hoarse from the shouting and screaming.

 

Flynn sat there, motionless, held only in place by the wrist restraints.

 

_Shit. Shit. Shit._

Reyes struggled feebly, a move that earned him mockery from his capturers as the Outcast guards returned to their group, to move closer to Flynn.

He was still breathing.

 

 _Barely_.

 

Flynn’s patchwork-breath stuttered and struggled in his unconscious state, his eyes fluttering rapidly beneath his heavily bruised lids.

Reyes let out a heavy breath before calling out again.

 

“Flynn? Can you hear me? Flynn?”

 

Flynn’s eyes rolled around inside his skull, his eyelids twitching as he began to awaken from his violence-induced sleep.

 

“Reyes?” He asked delicately.

 

Reyes tried to shift to Flynn as much as his bindings would allow.

 

“I’m here. We’re getting out, don’t worry.” Reyes asserted, for as much as himself as Flynn.

 

Flynn nodded groggily and winced at the motion. When he realised his hands were bound, he struggled in vain for a few moments, arms and legs kicking out wildly despite the pain, like a cornered animal. He then stopped, and huffed in indignation at his captivity before he glowed a deep blue momentarily before screaming; the biotic dampeners cutting into his gooseflesh at the introduction of a mass effect field.

 

“Shit. Fuck!” He screamed, relenting and releasing the swirl of biotics as the restraints began to cease their infliction. Flynn settled back into his foetal-like position, curled up against the rock next to Reyes.

 

Several moments passed. Their Outcast capturers talked amongst themselves a few metres away, smoking and drinking; likely rewarding themselves for a job well done on capturing both the Charlatan and the Human Pathfinder in one fell swoop; the two-people responsible for Sloane’s death.

 

Several minutes passed between Reyes and Flynn, only the sound of their breathing and Flynn’s anguished hissing to disturb the calm that no doubt preceded the storm.

 

“I’m sorry.” Reyes announced. “This is all my fault. I should’ve never got you mixed up in all of this.”

 

That much was obvious to anyone. He had messed up; he should’ve been more careful.

Especially with Ryder.

It was his fault. All of it.

 

“Ah don’t talk like that,” Flynn managed a blood-encrusted smile, “wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

 

Flynn’s laugh was cut short by a bout of wheezing, his sides still aching from the previous beating. Even now, Flynn was trying to make light of their situation, a talent Reyes admired him for, but he couldn’t shake the guilt creeping into his conscious.

 

 

_Now’s not the time; Flynn is hurt_

_Fuck. Where are you Keema?_

 

Reyes had sent out the innocuous distress signal to his angaran friend when it was clear that fighting was no option; they already had Flynn and they knew about the two of them: they wouldn’t hesitate to take out their anger on Flynn if Reyes had resisted.

And they did, when they discovered his attempts to free himself from his bindings; Flynn’s nose had cracked and the noise seemed to echo within the cavern, broken by Flynn’s yelp of panic and pain that came afterwards.

Flynn’s usually mouthy-self hadn’t helped. His attempts at levity had been met with a closed fist. After an hour of this treatment by their capturers, Flynn learned to stay quiet.

 

_She can’t be much longer; she must be on her way by now._

_We just have to hold out a little longer._

 

Flynn’s head began to loll forward, as if too heavy for him to hold upright anymore. Reyes shuffled closer.

“Flynn, I need you to stay with me, OK? Help is coming, just stay with me, please.” Reyes pleaded.

“Mmmm-ok.” Flynn replied, his voice laced with sleep.

 

Their capturers began to stir off to the side; their laughter and talking becoming louder as their drink set in.

 

_Good. Should be off their guard._

“Hey.” Reyes called out.

 

No response.

 

“Hey.” He repeated, raising his voice.

 

One of the guards approached. They reached into the portable cooler close to where Reyes and Flynn were sat, retrieved a bottle before twisting off its cap. They removed their helmet, and took a sip.

 

“Hey, you,” Reyes said to the guard, attempting to keep his voice low despite the urge to hiss in pain when he turned his head. “I want to talk to you.”

 

“Oh, you want something asshole? Too bad.” The guard continued to drink, walking back towards the alcove adjacent to the one Reyes was currently in.

Where all the other Outcast guards were.

 

“Listen, I have a proposal for you.”

 

The guard stopped and turned to face Reyes, laughing.

 

“You’re really something else Vidal. You tryin’ to buy me? Some of us aren’t shady fucks Charlatan.” The guard venom-spat Reyes’ title.

 

“Just hear me out, OK? I have…resources at my disposal. You help me and my friend out here, they’re all yours, I swear.”

 

The guard merely laughed in between sips.

 

“At least you’ve kept your sense of humour Vidal after you and your boyfriend getting the shit kicked out of you.”

 

“I know this wasn’t your idea. You’re not the one who put this all together. Kidnapping and assault of the human Pathfinder? There’s going to be blowback from this no question. From the Nexus and from the other Pathfinders,” Reyes managed a winning smile over his bruise-littered face. “You shouldn’t take on that for something that wasn’t your idea”

 

The guard began to walk forward.

 

_He’s interested? Maybe. Can’t tell._

 

“You help me and my friend here,” Reyes motioned to Flynn, “and I arrange for you to come out of this better off. Your own planet, enough food, water, wine, women, men or whatever. Whatever you want. Think about it; do you really want to be running with these Outcasts for the rest of your life, being hunted by the Initiative?”

 

The guard was now by Reyes feet.

 

“The Nexus can get fucked. They don’t scare me.”

 

“So, no deal I’m guessing?” Reyes asked mockingly.

 

“No fucking deal.” The guard repeated, before he spat on Reyes and turned away.

 

“Pity.”

 

Kicking forward at the back of the guard’s knees, Reyes managed to send the guard collapsing in on himself, falling backwards onto the slick, rock floor. The guard sat up, just as Reyes wrapped his legs around the man’s neck, his feet locking the guard in position in front of him.

 

Gurgling and oxygen starved, the guard turned purple to blue to white, his stale breaths ceasing.

 

_Finally._

Reyes pulled the guard close with his legs, hoping to find anything useful to undo his bindings.

 

_Shit. No key._

He unattached the guard’s omni-tool with his mouth. Activating the holographic keys for the high-power lighter with his nose, he aimed the tool at his bindings. After only a few moderate burns, he was able to shake free his restraints.

 

_Well, that was dignified._

_Now for Flynn._

Reyes moved over to the younger man, activating the omni-tool at the restraints that also impeded his lover’s biotics abilities.

 

“What the fuc…?”

 

He’d been found.

 

_Shit. Fuck. Fuck._

Reyes activated the omni-tool set off a small projectile plasma ball at the newly arrived guard, briefly setting his armour ablaze and staggering him.

 

He pulled Flynn up and began to stagger towards the cave’s exit.

 

The man stopped screaming and let out a few blind shots at the two escaped prisoners, the rounds ricocheting of the cavern’s walls. Another round thudded into Reyes leg and he staggered forward, dropping Ryder and slamming his head against the rock. The guard moved forward, pistol trained on Reyes. Reyes could hear the other guards in the adjacent cavern, the commotion arising them from their pre-emptive revelries.

 

Reyes looked over at Flynn.

He was gone.

All that was left was an indigo haze.

 

Flynn biotically blinked behind the guard, staggering slightly because of his injuries. He pulled the guard’s gun away from Reyes, forcing it to the man’s throat before he pulled the trigger, eyes wild and biotics weaving strange and unnatural shades of blue in the grim cavern.

 

Flynn limped toward Reyes, helping him to his feet and, together, they made their way to the mouth of the cave.

 

More guards flooded in behind them, Outcast bullets firing at them as they stumble-ran to the freedom of the Kadaran sunlight.

 

A shuttle, the familiar hum of a mass effect drive, emerged in the nearby over the mountains, sun shining of its metallic coat.

 

_About time Keema._

Flynn raised a barrier around the two of them, cobalt-blue biotics shielding them both, as Keema, rifle in hand, picked off some of the Outcast-loyalists.

Helping Reyes into the open shuttle, Flynn forced back the biotic shield, throwing back the guards with hurricane force, smashing bone and muscle against solid rock.

 

Flynn slumped after Reyes into the shuttle, landing on the steel floor, exhausted and injured but still very much alive. The shuttle pulled away from the cave quickly as another shuttle, full of Collective allies poured into the cave to clear out those still loyal to Sloane. Keema fussed over Reyes’ gunshot wound as Flynn lay on the floor, staring at the chrome ceiling, huffed a sigh.

 

“You never take me anywhere nice.”


End file.
